I came to Atlanta in 1965 after graduating NYU film school. I had gotten a job with Georgia Public Television. I moved into a stable/garage on 14th street, behind the house rented by WRFG co-founder Harlan Joy. When the shack burned I stayed a month at Bill and Linda Fibben‘s further down on 14th street which became a center for counterculture activities.

In 1967, having attended dozens of experimental film showings in New York I decided, with help from friends, to try to bring them to Atlanta. I rented the Art theater on 14th street for Friday and Saturday midnight screenings, booked films from the cinemateque in New York, and from October to January showed the works of Stan Brakage, Gregory Markopolus, Ed Emshwiller, Ken Jacobs, the Kuchar Brothers, Jack Smith, Adolpus Mekas, etc. It cost a $1.50 to attend and we sold out every night. (Local film distributors thought I had discovered a gold mine and wanted to know how to get in on the action.)

One night I showed an hour documentary on Lenny Bruce- the other hour the Hampton Grease Band performed. Another night I showed the actively enjoyed trippy feature “Lovers of Teruel”. The eclectic series ended when the backers, Diane Berger and Justice Randolph, realized that even though we were selling out, the costs of advertising and booking the films and the rental were losing us money. Alas, it was much fun while it lasted, and the theater itself soon followed us under. The attached is a poster that I stapled to trees on the Strip and the Emory campus. In 1969 I made a film for Vista featuring a buying cooperative in Cabbage Town for which I filmed the Fulton Cotton Mills in operation. I believe it is if not the only, certainly the last, film footage of the Mills up and running. The film is noteworthy also because of the interviewed Cabbagetown locals. Later, I established a film production company, Synapse Films, where I introduced numerous ex UGA art majors into the art of making money as grips in the motion picture industry. David Moscovitz